Going up a year and subsequent 11+

[Frogusha]

My DD is in Reception. She has been independently assessed outside of school as having a reading age of 7-8 y.o. Tonight I attended a parent meeting her school set up to help parents with phonics and realised just just how incredibly boring it's going to be for her in class. The reading books we received so far she read in about 30 seconds. In maths she has not been assessed but we just signed up for IXL math and year 1 level is too easy for her (don't know though if IXL is an adequate reflection of the school programme). So, I'm wondering if a) I can put her one year up, to Year 1 at this stage, b) provided that's possible if it's going to be good for her in the pastoral sense and c) how would it work with grammar schools entry later on, would they allow her to sit an entry one year before her intake, or would we have to repeat a year somewhere anyway? Has anybody been in this situation / had similar worries? Any opinions?

Thank you everyone for your views, very helpful! Of course, I can't assume my daughter would get into a Grammar, even if she was a genius. But I don't want to hamper her chances of trying hence the questions. Congratulations to all clever mummies of above-mentioned DCs! Wow, reading Harry Potter in reception is staggering. Elfonshelf, what an amazing family you have! Obviously you had natural intelligence but were your parents teaching you and your sister extra, or was it all your own hard work?

Thanks again all for input.

Do you know which reading test was used to calculate her reading age? I ask because from experience I know that if I tested the same child using five different reading tests I'd get five different results and a huge difference in reading age. Having said that a reading age of 7-8 years (which is a very odd result) isn't in anyway unusual.

I didn't get her tested. She went to a reading club on Saturdays and based on what she was doing there they assessed her as such. She reads the equivalent of Ladybird level 6.

How odd - congratulating mothers for their children being bright

A reading age of 7/8 in reception can't be that unusual at all - it's only 3/4 years ahead of age related expectations at most, and there is bound to be quite a spectrum of ability among such young children, especially given the differences in input that they will have had before starting school. FWIW, my dd started reception as a very good reader, and she never once complained of boredom. I think far too many parents expect their kids to be bored without any evidence to back this up.

My advice would be to avoid trying to fix things that aren't broken, and save your energies for the real problems which may out may not arise.

Oh, and if you have a bright, motivated child, there really isn't any need to do loads of extra work with them outside of school.

The grammars in my area and the selective independents will not take children out of their chronological school year. It simply isn't an option, so your child may end up repeating a year later on (I did; it was mind-numbing. Likely it would be Y6, which if you're in the state system would be horrific!)

How odd - congratulating mothers for their children being bright

Why is it odd, Rhonda? I believe maternal educational level is one of the main indicators of their dc's academic success.

Repeating yr 6 would be awful. All the endless SATs practice. The only way I could see it working would be to sit 11+ and then take the year out.

Ds comes out about 10th grade on Irvine's website link, yet he is perfectly happy splashing paint around in yr 2. Also you don't say where she is in the class, but even ds who is one of the oldest would be over a year younger than the oldest in the year above. He would never quite apart from his innate lack of co-ordination be one of the bigger boys picked for sports teams. On average he is likely to be behind in height, puberty etc in the year above. He still wouldn't be getting work at 'his level' in the year above anyway. They do challenge him in other ways and encourage him to embrace his errors as he is a perfectionist. It is also good for him to mix with his peers and develop emotionally. They will catch up with him. By the end of primary others might have overtaken him.

I also wonder if reception DC with a ready age of 7/8 is because parents have set about teaching them. No nursery I know teaches that level of reading in preschool. They do learning stuff all day long, but not that. It's an artificial situation, where a child ahead only as they have been taught very early.....

Op - did you actually read Elf's post, where she talked about both her and her sister having a complete breakdown? But you just want to know whether she had extra tuition?

I think children in reception should be allowed to play and have fun with their peers rather than do extra maths tuition. Let her be a child

smellyboot Ds just taught himself. Some dc just seem to get it almost instinctively. We read to him. He put the pieces together. The first word he read was LOADING on a computer game. I assumed that it was because he often saw it, but when I tried other words he knew them too. The nursery helped as they were attached to a school so had access to books. He would read three a night initially (on the lower levels). I have another dc who struggles to read and that was hard when he found it so easy and overtook her. All dc are different.

You seem a bit precious OP that we aren't falling over ourselves to say your daughter is top of the league and no one quite like it has ever passed through reception before
Some very bright children are missed in schools- some children able to show themselves at their best are pushed to breaking point by over excited parents and occasionally teachers.
Your DD is just starting school, be grateful if she does have a head start on the academics she can work much more on the social and emotional this year- because often those don't go hand in hand and I know they do on MN in the non-mumsnet world often children who are ahead in the academics are often behind in social and or emotional literacy, being super clever in reception will let her develop as a good all rounder which is ultimately what the best schools are looking for dwell on that instead

I did it; I sat the 11+ and was assessed (given it was an age-adjusted test) as though I was 12 months older than my actual age (summer-born so I was nearly two years younger than some classmates). I was a strange child and, for example, read myself Macbeth aged 5 (I'd already polished off a book of "Tales from Shakespeare" and wanted to look at the original, so got my parents' Complete Works down and worked my way through the play titles I recognised).

I really wouldn't recommend it unless your DD is not coping in her current year group -- and Reception is far too early to say that. I was probably never destined to be the world's most sociable person but being pushed into a class of people 1-2 years older than me really didn't help, and I floundered in PE and games for years (for some reason the age issue didn't occur to me as being partially responsible until I was an adult). In adulthood I tend to avoid sports or exercise as much as possible and I'm sure that's traceable back to those experiences at school.

I accept that it probably was, on balance, the right thing to do given the confines of the education system at the time (the primary school told my parents that from a purely academic point of view I could skip two years, but that (to paraphrase) that would be a complete disaster socially -- so I effectively repeated a year at the top of primary anyway as it was). But it's a big step to take and by no means all of the consequences are positive.

If there's scope for keeping your DD engaged through extension work then I would always recommend that over being skipped ahead a year. And I wouldn't make any firm decisions at this stage.

I didn't go to nursery or anything and could barely write my name when I started reception. By year 2 I was on the top table of my class, while the kids who had been taught all their phonics and numeracy at nursery or by parents were no longer noticeably at an advantage.

So, I suppose what I'm saying is that your DD may not always be top of the class - unless you keep up tutoring/Saturday classes - although, of course, she might be.

Thinking longer term, if DD moved up a year she would be 16 when her friends were 17 and learning to drive, 17 when her friends were 18 and drinking, etc... And she would start uni at 17, which I'm not sure all English unis are keen on.

Her teachers should be able to differentiate for her, especially if you put a note in her reading record as PP suggested above. If she's still a long way above her classmates in a couple of years (socially and emotionally as well as in all academic areas, including subjects like RE and DT which she might not have much experience with yet), then maybe that would be the time to start talking about whether she could skip a year.

My DC could all read fluently by the age of 3. I quite deliberately taught them to, because I am severely dyslexic, and this can be inherited, so I wanted them to have a head start just in case. ( I couldn't read properly until I was a teenager)

They are not dyslexic, so they didn't need the head start in the end. The idea of putting them out of year never even occured to us. Just being early readers didn't mean anything other they had been taught early. Deaf children are taught to read signing from birth.

My DC are bright, and have done well enough, but well within the range of normal. Being an advanced reader at that age tells you more about the parents than the child.

How good is her reading comprehension? She's got to understand what she is reading, not just read it.

So she hasn't been assessed it's a "rough" guess based on a reading club? I'm sorry but you really are setting yourself up for disappointment. Your child's doing fine try to enjoy and not create issues of boredom that don't exist.

I also wonder if reception DC with a ready age of 7/8 is because parents have set about teaching them. No nursery I know teaches that level of reading in preschool. They do learning stuff all day long, but not that. It's an artificial situation, where a child ahead only as they have been taught very early.....

That's certainly what seems to have happened in this case - the reading club, the talk of tutoring and the OP's attitude in general would all point to that. However, some kids do self-teach reading without any coaching/hothousing - my dd did. Somehow, she just picked it up.

smellyboot, my ds's nursery manager did reading(books from attached school) and maths 1-1 once she realised his ability. I didn't ask for it.
Reading I knew, because he brought home books, but maths(multiplication and division etc.) I didn't know until we received all his books after graduation.

My advice? Chill! Let her be a 5 year old...they don't get to be small kids just being kids for very long. If you have a seriously bright child they will do well no matter what.

I have a bright child (don't we all?!) and he's now at a superselective grammar. He got there with no tuition or hot housing. He has a natural ability for problem solving, decoding and NVR. But more importantly, he has a love for learning. That's what kids need, not tuition, or assessing, but a nurturing environment (home and school) that lets them be. Yes, expose them to 'clever' stuff and encourage their inquisitiveness, but don't kill the love of learning by pushing the academic stuff too much too soon.

Honestly, it will all work out in the end.

And OP, did you miss in Elfonshelf's post where Elf said she and her sister both had a breakdown after being pushed by their parents? I think that's the most important thing to pick up from her post, not academic achievements!

Elf - for you

Why are you sending your dd to a 'reading club' on Saturdays? It sounds like she's absolutely normal. Don;t go looking for issues (ie boredom) that aren't there. Chill out and let your dd play and be a child.

I don't think your DD will be bored at all - starting school is an all around experience and about so much more than just the reading/writing/maths.
I do think you need to be very careful about the messages you are giving her as if she picks up that you think the school work is below her, too easy, boring then this is when she will start to treat it as such.

As for moving ahead a year, I don't think that early reading is necessarily a reliable predictor of general academic skill anyway. My DS taught himself to read aged 2. In reception he was assessed with a reading age of 13. By contrast DD started school unable to read even three letter words. By the time they got to year 2 there wasn't much to choose between them academically.

It's great that your daughter is doing so well - encourage her and don't turn a positive into a problem.

I have never heard of a reading club for such young children...sports, dance, drama etc yes. Reading clubs?? Is that a london thing?